


Artificial

by chulibels



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama & Romance, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25771204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chulibels/pseuds/chulibels
Summary: Today Wonwoo brought Jun's rival a bouquet of flowers. Like any other day, Jun knew he must nobly endure.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo & Wen Jun Hui | Jun, Jeon Wonwoo/Wen Jun Hui | Jun
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	1. i. - artificial

Today Wonwoo brought Jun's rival a bouquet of flowers. Like any other day, Jun knew he must nobly endure.

Petty. Insecure. Unreasonable. Selfish. Unless he desired to be undesirable, Jun was taught from his youth to never devolve into someone with those unpleasing traits. Never was it coded in his DNA. 

But what was he to do with these overwhelming emotions threatening to burst like an irrepressible dam inside him as he knew his beloved continued to love another? 

That whilst their lips and limbs were currently in the acts of locking and licking and lavishing and loving, Wonwoo laid his thoughts unreachably far away towards the favored rival. 

Evidence was contained in that tiny slip of paper, a receipt fortuitously unearthed from under the rug that afternoon, detailing the price of the arrangement and different flower types.

A bouquet that never greeted his vision. He knew who it was for. 

He must not cry. He would not cry. He _could not_ cry. 

"What's the matter?" Wonwoo asked after their climax, beautiful sweat-soaked face etched with worry. 

"You brought _him_ flowers."

It was a statement of a fact, not an accusation. Or so Jun tried to convince himself. He resolved to not be petty as he had always been instructed, did he not? Resolved to never let these ugly emotions to consume. Suffocate. After all these years. 

"I... I did."

He must not cry. He would not cry. He _could not_ cry.

Ironic, for the most important person in his life was himself on the verge of tears. 

"I did visit him today. Junhui's mother...I helped her clean the gravestone. It's been five years since Junhui...with that accident..." 

Silent tears fell from the corners of those dear, dear eyes. In spite of the room's dimness, Jun could tell. Lifting his hands, he cupped Wonwoo's face, tenderly wiping away the pouring wetness with his thumbs until his beloved's tears receded. 

"Jun..."

The midnight breeze gently lifted the curtains. 

As the entering moonshine illumined their tangled bodies veiled in a fine sheen of sweat, a strip of light bathing their faces, Jun saw himself reflected through Wonwoo's eyes. What he saw there, unsurprisingly, was the very entity that would keep on existing constantly between the two of them. 

A borrowed face. A borrowed identity.

A substitute.

"You still love _him_. After all this time. That is why, with me, you force yourself to do these things," Jun's voice sounded ever emotionless and neutral on the surface.

"Heaven's sake, Jun. How many more times do you need me to tell you? Yes, you will never be him, but you're _you_. The Jun I'm in love with is in the _now_. The one I'm holding in my arms. Not..." A subtle faltering entered Wonwoo's tone as he resumed, "Not some distant memory. Isn't that enough?" 

The lies we tell others and to ourselves, thought Jun. 

To prove his devotion however, his beloved leaned intimately over the slender frame of Jun's body once more. A trail of hot kisses traveled along the expanse of his milky white skin. A kiss on the belly. The center of his chest. The curve of his neck. Shoulders. Ears. Nose. Forehead. Mouth. From north to south. East to west. Any loving variation thereof. 

"Wonwoo..."

"Shush, darling." 

He must not cry. He would not cry. He _could not_ cry.

He was thankful to Junhui. He hated Junhui. 

For now, he'd believe in the illusion. 

The final gift was bestowed upon the tender skin below his right collarbone, a light caress of his beloved's lips touching the silver barcode resting on that place.

An authentic kiss sealing away all the artificial parts of him.


	2. ii. - authentic

Today Wonwoo bought a bouquet of roses for Jun. Unlike any other day, he knew himself to be in an unendurable agitation. 

Drawing parallels day after day, night after night, months spanning into years, lonely and cruel, with nary a concrete destination in sight...

How weary he was of it all. Something ought to change, he had decided. 

Which was the reason why he stood in front of the music room despite the freezing chill in the midnight air. 

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Be cool and composed._

Twisting the glass doorknob, he let himself be ushered in by a familiar melody— a nocturne he recognized being played countless nights previously. Silver moonshine drifted in through the high rectangular windows, casting a phosphorescent glow upon the lone figure playing the grand piano with serenely deft fingers. 

_Jun_. Wonwoo's moonlight-in-mourning. His sunshine-in-sorrow. 

Celestial mender of the crevices where his soul was once punctured, so anguishing they almost undid him that day of seven long years ago. 

The day his former love was lost to him forever. 

"Jun."

Mildly startled, Jun withdrew his hands from the black and white keys, and hastily stood up. "Ah, I didn't hear you. What are you doing here, Wonwoo? Why are you still up? Your body might catch a cold," he said in his usual calm, mechanical tone, all the while still managing to show a strong hint of concern.

"I could ask the same of you. It's become a habitual thing, hasn't it? These midnight piano sessions. Not that I disapprove if it helps my darling relax somehow." Wonwoo smiled favorably at the blossoming pinkness on Jun's cheeks. "Either way, I brought something for you." 

Whereas his former love positively brimmed with confidence and charisma, Jun proved to be a little too berating and insecure of himself. It was evident in the way he, with downcast eyes, skeptically asked, "Is...is this really for me?" pertaining to the bouquet Wonwoo handed over. As if the flowers were not rightfully his. As if he didn't deserve them for the hundredth time now. 

Whereas his former love could be endearingly impatient at times, Jun, on the contrary, had a lot of patience to offer, as seen in how he meekly tolerated Wonwoo when he cheesily replied, "Who else would it be for? I see no one else around but the angel before my eyes." 

Whereas his former love bore a lively and pealing vibrance to his person, Jun was infinitely more reserved and soft-spoken nearly to the point of stoicism. A quiet, companionable comfort as shown in the way he timidly hugged the roses in acceptance and softly mumbled, "They're beautiful..." 

Whereas his former love... 

_Parallels and non-parallels and parallels and non-parallels and parallels..._

The same face. The same name. 

And yet altogether different. 

_Parallels and non-parallels and parallels and non-parallels and parallels..._

"Thank you Wonwoo. I love them."

 _Love._

For something to be born anew, the illusion must be broken. Drawing parallels drawn to an end.

Re-examining the hidden and once shaky depths of his heart, after seven self-punishing years, Wonwoo silently thanked Junhui and bid him a final goodbye.

The second gift came in the form of the circular object sheltered snugly inside a velvet box.

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Be cool and composed._

Pulling the box out of his jacket pocket to unlock and present what was housed inside, Wonwoo knelt in front of Jun. 

"I've been meaning to ask for a while now, and I figured this to be the perfect time. You've been with me through thick and thin, sitting by my side, always comforting and making me happy just by your presence. That's part of the many things that make you special, and I want to have that with you forever, and... Damn, do I sound lame in front of you right now."

_So uncool and totally not composed._

"What I'm trying to say is—" 

He breathed-in, he breathed-out. 

"—Jun, will you marry me?" 

The rose bouquet dropped on the floor with a light crinkle, scattering red petals on the lush mauve carpet.

Jun looked troubled. 

Extremely troubled. 

A reaction far from the one Wonwoo had been anticipating. Where had it gone, the _yes, I will_ he had so much been waiting for? Unease tugged at him like the beginnings of a stomach cramp. 

"You're not happy? You don't want me?" 

A vehement shaking of the head was his love's answer, an outright negation informing Wonwoo how preposterous his assumption could be. 

"Then what is it, love?" 

"I...I...I want to cry, but...Wonwoo, I...what do I do?" Jun looked utterly confused, his feet stiffly rooted beside the piano. With the voice of a lost child, entirely unfamiliar and fragile, he clutched with quivering hands the spot where his heart was situated and poured out, "There's this something in my chest that orders me to cry, but...I can't." 

Of course, Jun could not cry. He was not created for tears. Such sentiments were a foreign thing to his system. 

"I want to, but I can't." 

Without a second to waste, Wonwoo surged forward, pulling Jun into his arms in a bone-wrenching embrace. _Please don't look like that, please don't look like that, I'm here, please don't, don't, don't—_

"I wish to cry out my happiness, Wonwoo," Jun achingly murmured against Wonwoo's shoulder, the doll-like facet to his voice completely vanished.

At those words, Wonwoo took that precious face between his hands with promptness, and proffered, “Rather than tears, a smile is better suited for this occasion, don't you think?"

"But...I'm not _him._ " 

"Listen," Wonwoo held him by the shoulders, "My feelings for you are real, just as how everything about you is real to me. They're not something I made up just to make a delusional fool out of myself. _He_ would always be everything in my past, but in my present —my more important present— _you_ are real."

"Y-you shouldn't be saying things like that if you don't mean them."

"Of course I mean them. I am not a liar, Jun. So please don't invalidate my feelings." 

Locking their gazes together, he made certain Jun saw clearly the sole thing reflected in Wonwoo's eyes —the one thing that would constantly exist between the two of them.

"My love is _you_. You alone and no one else."

After a meaningful silence that seemed to stretch for hours on end, Jun nodded his head in meek assent. _I believe you_ , that nod, in all its simplicity, conveyed.

It brought the air back into Wonwoo's lungs only for it to be summarily expelled again into a cloudlike breath of relief.

"So, will you marry me? Be my husband?" 

An absence of tears did not mean an absence of emotions. The telling expression on Jun's visage was a testament to that. 

"Please, yes...marriage to you...there- there is nothing I want more..." How not unlike a child's honest yearning. It made Wonwoo's chest clench. In a small voice, Jun half-whispered, "Even though I'm just me, I will, so please—" 

With his own lips, Wonwoo captured the ones belonging to his love - rosy and plump, shy in the initial stages yet becoming deliciously responsive, more and more, as their kiss deepened. Over and over he relished those immaculate curves, nibbling and prodding and sucking, giving in to the ardent heat their mingling with his had provided. How sweet it was to drown in the taste of them, the feel of them. Passions heightening to an unbearable degree, with arms grasping at each other in desperation, Jun moaned audibly into Wonwoo's mouth as the latter continued to kiss him with a hunger so raw it felt as if Wonwoo's spirit would depart from his body, his tongue seeking salvation inside that dearest and most darling of mouths. 

"Mmn...ah...Wonwoo...love y- mmn..." 

In a moment of clarity, Wonwoo held himself back. Before anything else, there was the singular thing he must carry out. 

Pressing their foreheads together, belabored breaths soothing into a lull, he took out the object from the box. 

Worshipfully, Wonwoo traced each finger of his love's left hand with the naturally cold ones of his own. First, and next the second, and then to the third, until finally reaching the most coveted fourth. Pressing a kiss onto it, he slipped the band of silver into the length of alabaster skin, effectively sealing his eternal commitment to this beautiful and irreplaceable existence whom he had been smitten with since he could no longer remember when. 

"My love is you." 

Together with the joyous, if not deceptively tearful gleam in Jun's eyes, the ring glinted its proud metallic shimmer under the luminous moon.

A proof of the authenticity of the feelings inhabiting Wonwoo's human heart.


End file.
